mikeszekely

Take the copy you got from Pulse to the Walmart where you found Wheelie. Tell them you don't have a receipt, but yours is missing a part and you just want to do an even exchange. Having worked for far too many years in retail, I can tell you that Walmart will just send it back to Hasbro, so Walmart doesn't gain or lose anything on it.

I'm sure the eagle-eyed among you noticed a certain fellow in that Season 3 picture, so let's talk repaints. First up, yes, we have the Walmart-exclusive Retro Outback. The nice thing about Outback is that a toy-style figure is also a cartoon-style one, as unlike Brawn his animation model is much closer to his toy. That being said, Brawn's toy is based on his cartoon appearance, and while it makes sense that Outback would be a retool of Brawn (since the G1 toy was a retool of Brawn's), it actually leaves the Retro toy less accurate, as he's missing the weird proportions, shoulder windows, and skinny wheeled legs he was animated with. Oh well. He does, at least, have a brand new head and chest. He also has a new gun, which matches the G1 toy (which I believe was the only G1 minibot to come with a gun in the first place). The only remolded parts you see in alt mode is the gun, mounted on the tire just like the G1 toy. Like the G1 toy, the center of the hood is black with the Mysterion "M", as is the windshield, and the rear windows aren't painted at all, simply tampoed with the Autobot symbol. The front side windows are painted, though, which doesn't match the toy but does match the animation model. Look, as near as I can tell Outback appeared in a grand total of two out of the ninety-eight episodes of the G1 cartoon. Would it have been cool if Outback was more extensively retooled to better match the G1 toy/animation model? Sure. But I didn't expect them to, and frankly Brawn in different colors with a new head and chest is honestly good enough for me, and probably good enough for you guys to pick up and check off your list. He gets a recommend from me. But Outback isn't the only recent repaint in my collection. I also got the new 2-pack of G2 Dinobots. That pack includes Swoop here, packing the same wing rockets and same pair of swords as the G1 toy (which technically means you're getting a sword for G2 Grimlock with this set!). Swoop isn't just sporting some EXTREME new colors (which I happen to LOVE, by the way). He's got a remolded noggin, swapping the caveman-browed cartoon face for a visored look closer to the G1 toy (which makes sense, since the original canceled G2 toy would have been the G1 toy but EXTREME). Now, I think most of the the other SS86 Dinobots are neatly enough between absolute Sunbow G1 and the G1 toys that I don't really need toy versions of them, but if Hasbro wants to release a red Swoop with this face they could get another easy $60 out of me. As with Outback, none of the remolded parts come through in alt mode. But man, that neon green! Man, I just want to go back to the '90s, watch some Gargoyles, eat some Soda-Liscious, play some SNES, then pump up my Reebok Pumps, go to the mall, and swing by Kay-Bee before hitting the arcade. Maybe we'll hear some Offspring or Green Day in the car on the way over. Needless to say, love G2 Swoop (even if the right wing on mine doesn't like to stay together), and I'd totally recommend him as a standalone, but to get him you also have to buy... ...G2 Sludge. Who gets no remolding at all, just a new coat of paint. Orange is a bright color, but pairing it with black and blue is a bit less EXTREME, I guess. I can't really blame modern Hasbro, though, they're just going by the concept art for the original canceled G2 toy. There's some nice silver paint here, I suppose. I dunno what else to really say... Sludge has always been my least-favorite of the Dinobots, and I think he's arguably the worst-executed of the five SS86 Dinobots (not saying he's bad, just less good than the other four), so it stands to reason I'd be a bit underwhelmed by a straight repaint for G2. But hey, he comes with Swoop, who's like a must-have. And if you're weird like me, you'll want him just because you need him to complete your set of G2 Dinobots. That is, assuming he does actually complete your G2 Dinobots. Because when we're talking about G2 Dinobots, we're not talking about one set of five Dinobots, are we? We're actually talking about two sets of three. One set is Grimlock, Slag, and Snarl, who have traded in their silver parts for blue, green, and red, respectively. They're part of that early G2 stuff, where you were mostly getting G1 toys with slightly altered decos. But on the other hand, you have another Grimlock, Swoop, and Sludge, based on canceled decos for later in G2 when G2 was all about EXTREME '90s colors. So maybe for you, three G2 Dinobots is enough. Maybe you don't need this set. But I happen to like both! If I'm being honest, I like tiger stripe Grimlock better than blue Grimlock, and green-and-blue Swoop better than Slag and Snarl's G2 decos (though Slag and Snarl beat Islanders-fan Sludge). So yeah, indulge yourself!

Season 1. Apologies if you don't have an ultrawide display, there's a lot of them. Season 2. Just waiting on Powerglide. And with his fellow Season 3 minibots. Happy that Swerve should arrive soon, but we still need Tailgate, too. It's a safe bet we'll see him before too long, though.

This figure arrived from Pulse, like two days before I happened to go to Walmart for other reasons and find a whole bunch of them. This is the Walmart-exclusive Deluxe-class Retro Wheelie. When this figure was first announced I actually mistook it for a repaint of the Core-class SS86 Wheelie, and there's definitely some immediate similarities. Both have a backpack, both have wheels on the backs of their calves, both have wheels embedded in their forearms. But, lo and behold, it turned out to be a brand new Deluxe-class mold, and side-by-side you can see that the Deluxe is significantly larger, with shoulders that are closer in, a more tapered torso with an actual pelvis, more rounded lower legs, and feet that simply look like feet. Coming around the back, we can see that the backpack is a bit different than the Core-class toy. The other big difference is that this toy is colored to match the G1 toy, rather than the cartoon. So, even if you're not into toy-colored repaints, take note of this review as I expect most of this will apply when they inevitably release this toy again in cartoon colors. Wheelie comes with a lone accessory, his signature slingshot. As befitting his larger price tag, Deluxe Wheelie has a bit more articulation than the Core-class toy. I believe his head is on a ball joint. It swivels, and there's a little up/down tilt, but nothing really sideways. His shoulders swivel and move laterally a little over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a hair short of 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, a little more than that backward, and just shy of that laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His toes bend downward, largely due to transformation. His ankles pivot as well, but under 90 degrees. Wheelie's slingshot has a 5mm peg for a handle, and it plugs into either fist. There are tabs on the sides of his backpack that his arms tab into for alt mode. I don't think it was intentional, but a hollow slot on the handle of the slingshot allows it to plug onto those tabs for bot-mode weapon storage. Speaking of alt mode, the engineering is actually very similar to the Core-class, there's just a bit more of it. In both cases the chest forms a large chunk of the front, with the head hidden in the cockpit area. The difference is that the cockpit is tucked into the backpack, not the entire backpack, which allows the rest of the backpack to form a more natural rear end to the vehicle. The arms still make up most of the sides, including the rear wheels, but panels on the backpack hide his hands a little (which were showing by default on the original toy; mine has an upgrade kit). The hips still shift so that the legs hang out along the bottom of the vehicle, with the front fenders coming off the legs and mating with the chest. But rather than forming the nose of the vehicle from his feet, this time the nose folds out from behind the chest and his feet remain tucked under the vehicle. The result is, for the most part, a better car than the core-class. From the back, there's still some visible fingers and some transformation joints, but overall the shape is a bit more cohesive. The nose and the rounded rear benefit the most from the new engineering, sure, but the fenders are more flush, an attempt was made to hide the hands, and there's not a massive visible ball joint anymore. I suppose, in theory, you can use the 5mm port on the rear of the vehicle to plug in the slingshot. However, there's a tab under the nose that's definitely meant for the slot in the slignshot's handle, giving you a more out-of-the-way option for alt mode weapon storage. The bump in engineering this figure gets from being a Deluxe has, I feel, improved Wheelie's proportions, articulation, transformation, and alt mode. That's all good! Wheelie does have one flaw, though, that might make you think you're better off with the Core-class you might already have, and that's his size. I've always thought of Wheelie as the smallest of the Autobots, as he was often depicted as just a little over a head taller than Daniel. When they designed the Core-class toy, they took pains to make sure it was about the same size as the slug version that came with Grimlock. But this new version of Wheelie, while still being on the short side of most Deluxes, is a head taller than SS86 Bumblebee. So, I'm not really sure if I want to recommend him or not. It's like, pick your poison, do you want the figure that's better in every way but out-of-scale, or do you want the one that's in-scale but a bit crap? I mean, for an original mold, the proportions are still very obviously cartoon Wheelie and not G1 toy Wheelie, so like I said a cartoon-style version is more or less inevitable. And, I don't know, maybe for cartoon G1 Wheelie the Core-class is good enough. But the Retro version can pass for an IDW Wheelie, I think and in IDW he was depicted as a bit bigger.

I'm not necessarily inclined to argue. I think Takara (and/or Hasbro, by extension) are at their best making when making mass-market toys. Like, yeah, they have their flaws like limited articulation, in some areas, limited paint, or hollow spots, and some outright misses *cough Astrotrain*, but generally you're not mad about it because they're chunky, solid toys you can mess around with and you're usually not paying more than $60 (save for the annual Titans and Commanders, or the odd Haslab). But it's a different story when you're paying a premium for something ostensibly collector-focused. I mean, I'd have never paid $350 for MP-36, but I didn't have any problems paying that for Soul of Chogokin Dairugger/Vehicle Voltron. Still, for your sake, I hope you're happy with Predaking. I'm out, though, he's just too small for my collection. Same.

Saw this making the rounds on social media, in case anyone else was wondering how that T-Spark Predaking stacks up with Generations...

I'm gonna hold off and see if Hasbro will eventually release Motormaster and Wildrider on their own. I'm not buying an entire G2 Menasor when I've already got three G2 Stunticons. As for MPG "Secret Agent Arcee," if that's something people want, more power to them, but I didn't even buy the Missing Link Arcee in those colors.

In my experience, using DLSS to render at a lower resolution and then upscale to your monitor's resolution works pretty well now. But I avoid frame gen if at all possible.

I didn't think I needed an upgrade kit for Trion, but it looks like they fixed my biggest complaint with him.

The numbers I quoted were just the thermal pad mod. When he added the cooler his synthetic benchmarks were closer to 17% better. The cooler also didn't make much difference while gaming; he had lower temps, but the CPU wasn't thermal throttling with just the thermal pad. EDIT: Did ZTT only add a thermal pad? Maybe the copper ETA used is the difference.

On YouTube, ETA Prime pulled the graphene pad that's stock over the MacBook Neo's internals and cut the section that goes over the A18 out. He then applied some Noctua thermal compound over the A18, then covered it with a strip of copper. On the other side of the copper he used an Arctic TP-3 thermal pad to create a physical connection between the copper and the bottom of the Neo's aluminum chassis. After doing so, he was able to get roughly 10-20% better scores on synthetic benchmarks. For less synthetic results, he was playing No Man's Sky. Totally stock, he was running the game on about medium settings and the Neo would quickly hit 105 degrees and start thermal throttling, resulting in around 30fps. Just by replacing the stock pad with his copper-and-TP3 solution the A18 stayed in the mid-80s, which made throttling unnecessary and netting him nearly 60fps. I don't have any sheets of copper just lying around, but I wonder how long it's gonna be before we start seeing professional kits that do this? Seems like there's a lot of extra performance that can be wrung out of the A18 Pro just with better passive cooling.

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, it's showing as full price and out of stock.

Really? I've searched several different ways and I can't even find this figure on Target's site.

Available for pre-order now. I think I might get one. He can be my 13 instead of Star Convoy.

The M1 Air doesn't have Magsafe, that didn't come until the M2. The downgraded USB port is a bummer, but when I do hook it up to a display I wind up using a hub anyway, so while it's one aspect that really is a downgrade it's one that really won't affect me personally. I'd say the Neo is a capable computer for the price, and probably good enough for most people and a great starting point for people looking to make the switch to MacOS. If you're using an M1 it is, like I said, a modest but inexpensive upgrade, for the most part. If you need more power, or your running an M2 or newer, though, you should be looking at an M4 or M5 Air, likely.